Greece, a nation once praised for its progressive stance on LGBTQ+ rights, may soon implement a significant restriction: banning surrogacy access for single men and same-sex male couples. Justice Minister Giorgos Floridis revealed on Tuesday that proposed changes to the civil code would limit surrogacy exclusively to women.
Floridis clarified that the revised law would define eligibility based on the inability to carry a pregnancy, a condition that, according to the proposed framework, applies only to women, whether in heterosexual or lesbian relationships, or single.
“We are now clarifying unequivocally that the concept of inability to carry a pregnancy does not refer to an inability arising from one’s gender,” Floridis stated. “In other words, a woman may be unable to carry a pregnancy whether she is in a male-female couple, a female same-sex couple or on her own.”
The decision effectively excludes single straight men, gay men, and male couples from accessing surrogacy services — a marked departure from recent legislative progress. Notably, single or partnered gay women would still retain access to surrogacy under the new guidelines.
The proposal comes just a year after Greece made headlines for becoming the first Orthodox Christian-majority country to legalise same-sex marriage, overcoming strong opposition from the Orthodox Church. Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hailed the landmark legislation as one that would “boldly abolish a serious inequality.”
Much of the momentum behind the marriage equality bill was driven by Stefanos Kasselakis, Greece’s openly gay opposition leader from the left-wing Syriza party. While he played a crucial role in passing the legislation, he opposed the restriction on surrogacy for male couples included in the same law.
Despite these setbacks, Greece has shown consistent progress on LGBTQ+ rights in recent years. In 2022, it outlawed conversion therapy and banned medically unnecessary surgeries on intersex infants. In 2017, it enacted the Legal Gender Recognition Law, allowing transgender individuals to change their legal gender without prior medical requirements.
Globally, surrogacy laws remain inconsistent. Commercial surrogacy is common in the United States but heavily restricted or entirely banned in several European nations, including Spain and Italy. Italy, under far-right Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, has led a hardline approach, banning surrogacy and adoption by same-sex couples, and criminalising international surrogacy in 2024.
